Dormitory!!!

Lately, I and my friends in office have been using the term "Dormitory" quite frequently, not because we use it too often, but because its unavailability whenever we want to use it. This recalls me of the incident that happened faced few days back. One of my friends reached office and decided to use the dormitory as she found herself ailing. There are around 6 beds in the ladies dorm in our office, which is far better than the single bed present in the dorm in my previous organization, but to go there, one has to walk for about 10 good minutes in the scorching sun. Somehow she managed to reach dormitory, but found out that all the beds were already occupied. What surprised her most was when she saw two girls sharing the same bed (which means 12 girls sleeping in the very first hour in office) with few waiting for their turn to occupy a bed as soon as it gets vacant. She patiently waited for her turn which came after an hour and after resting for another hour, returned to her desk. She was not only baffled with what had happened but also wasted up an extra one hour waiting there. But what gained our attention was the way dormitory was used.

Ideally, dormitory is provided in offices so that someone can take rest there if he/she is unwell. (That was what I had seen in my previous company). But here I found out that dormitory is being used "mainly" by those people who are on bench or who feel that sleeping is something more important than completing the work within the office hours. I emphasize on the word "Mainly" here because I do agree that I have seen few people as well who use it in case they are feeble. But what happened with my friend was merely because there were girls who slept in dorm as they didn’t have anything else to do, leading it to situation where the really needy ones had to wait for them to wake up. I even don’t blame them for this as the lack of work allocation and infrastructure would definitely leave anyone useless. But in the end, we all were left discussing few questions - Should resources understand the purpose of dormitory and use it effectively? In cases like above, should there be someone to keep a watch on who is using the dormitory for a genuine purpose? Is it fair that in spite of such facilities provided in the office, people who are in need cannot avail them? Are "Library" and "Games" the only options sufficient to reduce the frustration of an employee? Should an organization hire extra resources and keep them on bench without providing any work…Not even terminals? Or should any dormitory be provided in "our" office?

A Beautiful Journey!!!

Its rightly said "Time Flies Fast". I wonder how many times a day I think of this quote and keep reminiscing on all the new experiences I had in the past one year. I would soon be celebrating my first wedding anniversary with Yog and am highly excited about it. At the same time, the sweet memories of the last year make me feel nostalgic. We had tied the knot on 29^th May, 2010 and as I look back, there is a saga of experiences that I take with me welcoming another year of our love.

My grand welcome by my in-laws after our wedding would always remain the most memorable part of my life. Nothing could have been better than the special treatment I got as a "nayi – bahu" over there and the way I was made feel homely was completely heartening. We went to Vaishnodevi, Patnitop and Jammu and it would always remain the most wonderful trip together ever. The first visit to my parents and siblings post-marriage will always remain special as the feeling was completely different and I don’t know why but moms do start behaving strangely after their daughters get married. By strangely I mean they start caring more about the little things and giving advises and what not. May be, it’s their way of expressing love and care and no doubt, it’s the best feeling. Since childhood, the image of "Saasu-Maa" (Mother-in-law…i call mine as Mummyji :)) was a bit different in my mind (a negative one…may be owing to the Lalita Pawar movies I saw :D). But I was surprised to find myself crying in the arms of Mummyji as were leaving for Pune (She definitely provided the warmth and love of a mother to me).

We came to Pune on 20^th June, 2010 and my "Griha – Pravesh" (house warming ceremony) in our new home was done by Yog in a typical filmy style. He bought candles from nearby store as an alternate to "Aarti"; as there was no "kumkum" I had to take out my "Sindoor" and the Bisleri bottle was the source of "Jal" (Water used for auspicious purpose). I remembered the scene from Chalte-Chalte, only missing thing was the Talcum Powder that SRK sprinkled on the floor to mark RM’s footprints, but as our home was vacant for more than a month, the dust served the purpose very well.

After coming to Pune, we both were back to our normal lives (Though there was much more than normal). On the first day of our office, post marriage, we were welcomed by all our friends with ‘Ohhhhhhhhh….", "vowwwww….."(The vow was for me of course ;-)) etc., everyone demanding for sweets and treats. Along with managing office, we started setting up our home and it was a real fun doing that. It does feel wonderful when you buy new things for your home and it becomes more fun when you have someone to quarrel on who is going to open the box first? And this continues till date. Almost every day, we were visited by lots of friends (especially Yog’s…believe me they are the best buddies I have ever come across), all of them equally excited as we were about how we are settling down in our new lives together. The tea, lunch and dinner parties that we all had together at our home are some of the wonderful memories of our initial days (It doesn’t mean we don’t party anymore :P)

Soon, we were visited by my in-laws (My mummyji, papaji, both didi-jijus and their kids) and it was a complete blast. We performed our long-pending "Satyanarayan pooja" at our home the first day and the next day, we all went to Lonavla. It rained heavily that day but still we all decided to go to Bhushi dam amidst the continuous downpour and though we planned to visit Khandala, the highly foggy atmosphere didn’t allow reaching there and we had to return back to our home. The next day everyone left and in spite of the short trip, we still relish those two days as some of the best memories of fun-filled time with family. The next visit was by my parents and siblings in December which was after 6 months of our marriage. So I was very much enthusiastic about the visit. As expected, my mom was home with a bag full of one or the other kind of eatables, explaining me the nutritious value of each one ("Beta, ye roz khana, health k liye bohot achcha hota hai"…). We visited different places in Pune the next two days and when they left, we were again alone and I was shed to tears. After some time and lots of requests, my brother-in-law finally came to our home for a week and I could not have expected anything less than the fun all three of us had together.

In between all this, we celebrated lots of festivals and occasions together for the first time. We both went to my home to celebrate Rakhshabandan (Being the first after marriage, it held a lot of importance for everyone), we did Janmashtami pooja for which we are awake till 12:00 in the night, I kept nine days fasting in Navratri (though I had to convince Yog a lot to gain his permission :)), celebrated "Maha-laxmi" pooja with some of our close friends (I tried to follow all the rituals which my Mummyji does at home…just to continue the tradition), kept my first "Karva-Chauth" vrat (it will always remain very special to me). We both went to my in-laws place to celebrate our first "Diwali" post-marriage and though I was away for the first time from my home and missed it a lot, it was a whole new experience to celebrate it with my in-laws and I must say it was an awesome one.

We also celebrated our Christmas and New Year with our friends and it was a right hullabaloo. Though we had a Christmas tree at our home and I was really excited to decorate it, Yog didn’t let me do it and I don’t know why ( I don’t like you Yog for doing this to me :(). And then we welcomed 2011 with new dreams and hopes. As we never lessen the importance of any special day, we celebrated "Valentine’s day" in our own special way with cake, cards, chocolates and roses (Rather than buying a separate set of cards and roses, we bought common onesJ ). We also celebrated our birthdays together in our own unique way making it special for each other. The next major thing that happened in our lives was that both of us changed our companies.Though I was very excited to change my company after almost 2 years 8 months, I ended up realizing that its almost same everywhere. Only change is that your daily routine changes (and yes your salary of course), everything else remain the same. After that I didn’t give much thought to whether my decision was good or bad. In between, I also visited my home and in-laws place after a gap of 6 months and it was good to reunite back with the family.

Amongst all these big events (yes, they are and will always remain big and special events for me forever), we both had our share of little experiences, the long-awaited weekends (I still wait for the weekend since Monday itself), the monthly budget planning (it always feels good as it makes you realize that you have got someone to share your expenses with), the cleaning of wardrobes every weekend (I like to manage Yog’s wardrobe more than mine), the new dishes I cook for Yog (doesn’t matter whether he likes it or not… I experiment just to add it to his "Favorite cuisines" list in case he likes it), the small fights which only end up with both of us realizing that we love each other more than we did prior to our dispute :)…, and the best thing for me is the way Yog understands my unsaid words..Though it may be as silly as my wish to have an ice-cream (I don’t know how he understands it very well…Trust me I don’t even give that kind of expression: P)

As one of our friends said that life is moving fast in the form of 5 days installments…It sounds so true as I am about to complete my one year of marriage and life has went every fast. It is said that "First Love can never be forgotten"…I must also say that all the first experiences of life remain memorable. The first year of marriage in everyone’s life always remains special …so has been mine. Hence for all my buddies, who are not yet married – start giving a thought to it ;), those who are recently married – enjoy your days :) and those who have completed more than a year – cherish your beautiful memories. And I hope you all would have already done this after reading my blog :).

A Fresh Start...!!!

Writing has never been my cup of tea. But I m so free in office these days that I have done almost all the activities that people do in their free time, some of them being the most frequent ones like:-

-Making phone calls to Yog every 15 minutes and asking him the same question "Hello..kya kar rahe ho? Bohot busy ho kya? Mere paas kuch kaam nahi hai…Main kya karu?" (I hope you would have figured out who is Yog :) )

-Ping my friends on communicator with – "Its damn boring here"…and getting a smiley ":)" in return from them…Well, what else can those poor people do for me to reduce my boredom :P

-Play flash games till the time I get bored and find nothing interesting.

-Browse my phone book just to ensure that I have not missed any person to call just to increase my phone bills and make Yog pay for it :D

-Google almost every topic I can think about and visit the same page everyday in the hope of finding something new. Although "Technical stuffs" are an exception to this, and out of the remaining ones, 50% of the links are blocked by my company without any security threatening reason.

-Plan what all pending tasks I have to complete the following weekend and never complete them as "Sleeping" becomes my top priority task on weekends.

As my life in office has become monotonous by doing all the above things every day, I thought of using my free time to write blogs and this thought is inspired by a friend of mine who is very active on blogging sites, else I am too lazy to use my brain in doing something innovative :D

Hi everyone, I am Swati, working as a Software professional. I am married to Yog (Hence I take the liberty to disturb him whenever I want :D) and will be soon providing more details about him as he holds a very special place in my life..(Now that’s quite obvious I know, but still I am crazy talking about him a lot :D)

I think this much is enough for now…Don’t remember when was the last time I wrote for so long…

So cyaa till I am back with my next post!!!